I am not always faithful, but I am never discouraged; I leave myself wholly in the arms of our Divine Lord; He teaches me to _draw profit from all--both good and ill that He finds in me_.[69] He teaches me to speculate in the Bank of Love, or rather it is He who acts for me without telling me how He goes to work, that is His affair and not mine; my part is complete surrender, reserving nothing to myself, not even the gratification of knowing how my credit stands with the Bank. XVI LETTER TO HER SISTER CÉLINE A sister told Sœur Thérèse of the strange phenomena produced by magnetism on persons who really wish to yield up their will to the mesmerizer. These details appeared to interest her keenly and on the morrow she said to the Sister: “Your conversation yesterday did me so much good. Oh! how I wish to be magnetized by our Lord. It was my first thought on awakening. With what delight have I delivered my will up to Him. Yes, I want Him to make Himself master of my faculties in such sort that my actions shall no longer be human or personal, but wholly divine, inspired and directed by the Spirit of Love.” COUNSELS AND REMINISCENCES You are quite wrong to think of sorrows that the future may bring; it is, as it were, intermeddling with Divine Providence. We who run in the way of Love must never torment ourselves about anything. If I did not suffer minute by minute, it would be impossible for me to be patient; but I see only the present moment, I forget the past and I take good care not to anticipate the future. If we grow disheartened, if sometimes we despair, it is because we have been dwelling on the past or the future. HIST. D’UNE AME, CH. XII I no longer thirst for either suffering or death, yet both I dearly prize. Long did I call upon them as the harbingers of joy.... Suffering has in very truth been mine, and I have thought I wellnigh touched the eternal shore! I have believed from my earliest youth that _the little flower_ would be gathered in its spring-time; now, it is the spirit of self-abandonment alone that guides me, no other compass have I. I know not now, how to ask anything eagerly, save the perfect accomplishment of God’s designs upon my soul. HIST. D’UNE AME, CH. VIII “Pray for me,” she would often say, “when I implore Heaven to come to my aid, then it is that I feel most forsaken.” “And in this desolation how do you avoid discouragement?” they asked her. “I turn to the good God, to all the Saints, and I thank them just the same. I think they wish to see to what point I shall carry my trust.... But not in vain have these words of Job sunk into my heart: ‘_Though He should kill me yet will I trust in Him_.’[70] I acknowledge it was long before I reached this degree of abandonment; our Lord has taken me and placed me there!”